


Making This a Thing

by pastelfalcon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Arguing, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Candles, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Play, Feathers & Featherplay, Fluff, M/M, Relationship Problems, Safe Sane and Consensual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelfalcon/pseuds/pastelfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury likes things a certain way, both in bed and out. Steve Rogers learns how to fit into that equation. Nick learns how to let him. Pre-CATWS, likely not entirely cohesive with CATWS by the time I'm done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making This a Thing

“This might be coming outta left field,” Steve begins, ducking his head apologetically but keeping his voice even, “But were you checking me out in the gym?”

The corner of Nick’s mouth quirks. “That depends,” he says calmly, leaning back in his desk chair – which creaks softly – and crossing his arms over his chest.

“On?” Steve prompts, glancing at him with almost tactical consideration.

Nick raises his eyebrows. “Well is there a reason I should have?”

Steve shoves his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his mouth tilting in a half-smile. “I was maybe hoping there was,” he hazards.

Nick sits up straight and starts moving piles of important paperwork around his desk. “You askin’ your Director out on a date, Captain Rogers?”

Steve’s face breaks out into a grin as he says, “Yes, sir, I am.”

*

Steve Rogers, Nick finds, is not ready for dating, in the traditional sense of eating in public and perusing history museums with hands occasionally brushing. Which is great because Nick is too damn old and too damn busy for puppy love, and the last thing he needs is to be photographed sharing casual intimacies with Captain America. Fox News doesn’t need another black man to needlessly demonize, and Twitter doesn’t need fodder for buttpirate jokes at the expense of his eyepatch. (Not that pirate jokes would be the worst of what social media would come up with.)

But Steve _is_ ready to get his pretty mouth around Nick’s cock and his hands on Nick’s hips, his hand on the back of Nick’s neck and his tongue in his mouth, his fingers in Nick’s ass and his lips over Nick’s dark-skinned nipple. Steve’s ready to fuck him and Nick, without a complaint in the world besides his back, is ready to take every ounce of Steve’s pent-up frustration.

“We can do it the other way, if you want,” Steve says one afternoon when he’s sitting on the edge of Nick’s bed, restless as he often is after sex.

Nick stays sprawled on his back, reclined head comfortably cushioned by stacked pillows. “I’ll letcha know if I get bored,” he drawls, nudging Steve’s hip with his foot, and Steve turns his head to smile at him.

*

They do not fuck around on the clock, and they do not fuck around in the workplace even after hours.

They do, however, fuck in uniform once, soot-streaked and battered beneath kevlar and leather, the stars and stripes and endless black, and Nick winces when Steve holds him too tight but won’t let Steve apologize for it when he tries.

*

Steve goes home most nights, but the ones he spends with Nick are Nick’s private treasures, spent with Steve snoring softly in his arms, skin so hot Nick sweats and can’t sleep and doesn’t mind it one damn bit.

He’s used to running on no sleep anyhow.

*

“You’re seeing somebody, aren’t you, Nick,” Alexander says to him in the middle of a phone conference when Russian soldiers start gathering in places they’re not supposed to be.

“That’s got nothing to do with the conversation,” says Nick tiredly.

“It’s good to hear you a little less morose is all,” drawls Alexander, the sound of his chair squeaking audible even over the phone. “You know you were never the same, after –”

“Let’s keep the rehashing of old memories to a damn minimum when we’ve got Putin sticking his military where it doesn’t belong,” Nick cuts him off crossly, massaging his temple, and Alex says something like _suit yourself Nick_ before returning to invasion talks.

*

“What’s with the trenchcoat?” Steve asks him one afternoon, eating his way through the takeout he has on Nick’s classy glass coffee table. Like all of the furniture in his exceedingly nice penthouse, Nick didn’t buy it and doesn’t actually give a shit about it because he’s had too many apartments blown up to be materialistic. The sauce seeping from one of Steve’s containers is not bothering him.

It’s _not_.

“Don’t let that shit leak all over my table,” Nick says dryly.  

“Sorry,” says Steve, cheek swollen with a bite mid-chew; he shuffles his boxes around hectically to find the source and then dabs it up with a napkin. “Seriously, Nick. No one else wears a trenchcoat to work.”

“Nobody else has my superior sense of style,” Nick tells him, liberating a carton from the collection and leaning back on the couch to pick at it with chopsticks.

“You don’t think it’s too much?” Steve asks him, because he thinks he’s a cute, cheeky little shit.

“That is a funny-ass question coming from the guy who wears the American flag,” Nick notes with a level gaze, and Steve flushes but grins, all cheekbones. Because Steve’s sitting on the floor instead of the couch like civilized people, Nick can tilt his knee over and butt Steve in the shoulder with it in playful reproach.

Steve immediately tilts his head, resting the side of his face on Nick’s knee.

“It does the badass thing in the wind,” Nick deadpans, because he can.

Steve shifts enough to peek up at him with another grin. “What’s that?” he says like most people say ‘excuse me’. 

“It flaps,” says Nick, waggling his fingers in illustration, and Steve laughs so hard he can’t form actual words for ten minutes. “It’s _majestic_ ,” Nick chastises him indignantly when Steve’s almost wound down, and Steve cracks up all over again.

*

“Who is it?” Natasha asks, eyes bright with interest, and Nick gives her one look before assigning her a two-week mission in Crimea. Nat raises her eyebrows, smirking as she says, “If you think I can’t find out from there you don’t know me very well.”

“If you think I won’t make it two _months_ , you don’t know _me_ very well,” Nick growls, eyeing her angrily.

“He must be hot,” she muses, considering him, and takes the folder from his desk.

“He’s alright,” says Nick. “Now get out.”

*

They get into legitimately heated debates when Nick assigns Steve and his team to contain SHIELD follies, and sometimes Steve gets so angry he doesn’t approach Nick outside of SHIELD briefings for days. Nick thinks it’s cute and sad that Steve holds the world to such pure ideological standards while there’s fires puking smoke all over the world and children die for men’s petty wants. There is nothing _pure_ about humanity or _protecting_ it, and Nick’s not going to yield to a couple of impassioned speeches from an overgrown boy in a costume when he has the world to save on a daily basis.

He had Steve’s anger and iron once. He’s kept the anger but he’s traded the iron for nightmares and compromises because iron's only good for the movies, it’s never saved anyone from anything but the responsibility to act. And Nick will take action over ideology any damn day of the week.

Steve comes back eventually every time. Once or twice, he even apologizes, but Nick never does.

*

Steve likes to sit on the edge of the tub and watch Nick trim his beard in the mornings after his rare sleepovers. “I couldn’t grow much of anything,” he tells him once, rubbing at his own jaw thoughtfully, “Serum didn’t really help.”

Nick watches him through the mirror and says, “If you tell me this whole thing’s some weird vicarious beard kink I’m gonna shave the whole thing off.”

Steve grins and starts a bath for them to share.

*

Nick comes back from being away from Washington for two days to find a flat package waiting for him on his coffee table, wrapped in plain brown paper with Steve’s handwriting scrawled across the front. Nick already knows Steve had been inside in his absence, but the gift is a surprise.

_Not sure how you feel about anniversaries but it’s our first big one. Happy Three Months, Nick._

His signature is formal, but Nick knows that’s manners and not lack of intimacy.

He fixes himself a drink and sits down to open it, coughing against the alcohol’s rich burn as he swallows. It’s a sketchbook, last pages still so fresh the pencil marks smudge just a bit beneath the reverent glide of his fingers.

Nick Fury sees himself through Steve’s eyes, and he smiles the whole damn time.

*

“Uh, wow,” says Maria, blinking at him owlishly through a secured video chat. She rears her head back a little and wrinkles her nose. “Really?”

Nick glares at her, exhausted. “I need new friends,” he says blandly.

“Don’t tell Coulson,” Maria suggests sagely, her surprised replaced with a devilish grin, “He’ll flip his shit.”

“Didn’t intend to,” Nick mutters, perching his cheek on his fist, “The man’s still mad at me about his damn trading cards.”

*

Nick starts sleeping without his eyepatch again.

Steve doesn’t comment but Nick knows he notices, because most of his sketchbook had Nick without it.

*

“You need some friends,” Nick says with a snort when Steve sits his ass in front of the television and starts unpacking an xbox one, spreading a mess of torn plastic bag and cardboard packaging around himself like a garden.

“C’mon,” Steve protests, fussing with the wires, “It’s your day off, live it up a little.”

“First off, I don’t have _days off_ , I have days where I work from home until somebody blows something up.” Nick eases to the edge of the couch and starts flipping through the collection of games on his coffee table, eyeing their covers thoughtfully. “Second, I don’t think _anybody_ over the age of twenty-five thinks of this crap as _living it up_.”

“How old’s Natasha?” Steve wonders outloud. “She’s the one who bought this for me.”

“That’s a question I’m not stupid enough to answer,” Nick tells him, but he accepts the controller Steve hands him a moment later.

*

Steve is proficient with a needle and thread. “You don’t travel with professionals without picking up a few things,” he says, when Nick watches him with unspoken questions. Steve keeps huddled over Nick’s jacket, eyes intent on his work. “The girls I toured with, they were run _ragged_ with our show schedule, so they kinda picked on me to help them out with this sort of stuff.”

“Good skills to know, if you ever split your pants with those kicks you like so much,” chuckles Nick.

“All done,” Steve announces as he flicks the jacket back out. Nick sits up to take it from him, looking over the handiwork with a soft snort.

“Cute,” he says, touching the tiny heart stitched into the lining in addition to the fixed tear. 

“Some of the guys had their girls back home stitch whole messages inside their coats,” says Steve, fitting his needle back into the tiny kit he’d brought with him. He grins wide. “But I figured you wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to do that.”

“Come spell it out someplace else,” Nick suggests as he sets his trenchcoat aside and opens his knees to accommodate Steve’s immediate acceptance of his offer.

“I love you,” Steve whispers against his thigh, kissing the bare skin there with gentle lips.

*

They go out to eat on impulse once, and Nick finds they both share a love of steak and potatoes, making their decision as to where to eat a quick and easy one. Steve keeps his ballcap on for privacy even though he admits to thinking it’s pretty rude, and Nick fucks with him by repeatedly apologizing to their waitress for Steve wearing his hat inside. “Young people today,” he says to her, and she laughs while Steve’s ears turn red and he glares at Nick from under his hat’s brim.

*

“So about that boredom thing,” Nick begins lazily. Steve goes still with three fingers half-crooked towards Nick’s prostate, eyes snapping to Nick’s face before he sees Nick’s comfortable smile and the line of tension in his shoulders eases.

“Jesus,” Steve breathes, “Don’t do that.”

“You really think if I was bored I wouldn’t have said anything?” Nick snorts, rolling his eye and easing up on an elbow. “Anybody ever tell you you’re awful _self-conscious_ for an American icon?”

“Yes,” Steve answers immediately. He pauses and cracks a bitter smile. “More than a few.”

“Well cut that shit out,” Nick tells him with crossness that’s feigned for effect. 

“Yeah, okay,” Steve agrees amicably, but Nick knows he’s not going to. He goes back to working his fingers, loosening Nick up with practiced ease, his tongue in the corner of his mouth like he’s in the middle of a complicated sketch. Nick groans softly and spreads his thighs further, enjoying the endless burn of Steve’s thick fingers working his insides, the way Steve’s fingertips press in steady circles against his prostate.

It’s good, it’s _real_ good, and it always is.

“So was there something you wanted?” Steve finally prompts, eyebrow raising while he watches Nick palm his own cock.

“You ever tell a man exactly how you want it?” Nick asks, meeting Steve’s gaze with measured calm. Steve licks his lips thoughtfully and nods, but his eyes are intent on Nick’s face again, watching Nick’s chin tilt up as he considers his method of explanation. “There are some men that like to be told. I happen to be one of them,” Nick says after a minute.

“You?” Steve says in slightly dry surprise, his eyebrow arching sharply as he grins a little.

Nick gives him a look.

Steve licks his lip again and considers. “You like taking orders. You like… being punished?” he asks, uncertain now.

Nick resists the urge to grin at him outrightly. “Have I been a bad boy?” he asks tonelessly. Steve turns pink and Nick laughs. “Sure, sometimes. But I don’t look at it as punishment so much as… re-grounding. A way to put my head on straight.”

“Seems like there should be some ground rules,” Steve muses.

“So let’s discuss ‘em,” Nick agrees, moving his hips now, and Steve leans down to kiss the upwards tilt at the corner of Nick’s mouth. “Later. For now let’s stick to your boring-ass routine.”

“So that’s how it’s gonna be,” huffs Steve, but he gets his cock in Nick and stops complaining for about twenty minutes.

*

Nick is not surprised that instead of going home Steve camps out on his laptop and starts reading almost immediately after their little chat. He’s been spending more hot summer days in Nick’s apartment than he spent cold winter ones, sunlight beaming bright and cheerful through the window in the living room with about five inches of bulletproof glass muffling the happy birdsongs from outside. Steve in nothing but his jeans, the top of his naked ass showing over the drooped waistband, is becoming a fixture on his couch.

*

“Really,” says Nick.

Steve bites his lip but it’s to mask his grin not indicate shame for it. “Yeah, sure, why not?”

“Why not,” Nick echoes without tone. He fixes Steve with one of his best menacing glowers. “Maybe because that goddamn coffee table’s worth twice what it cost to thaw your big ass out.” Actually, he has no idea how much the coffee table that he does not care about cost. And thawing out Steve cost a whole shitload of money. “And maybe because it’s made out of _glass_.”

“I stood on it yesterday to change that lightbulb,” Steve tells him, “It’s sturdy.”

Nick’s eye bulges indignantly. “You did _what_.”

“It’ll be fine,” Steve says a little petulantly, eyebrows knitting together. “We’ve talked about trying this out for days.”

“None of our discussions included me laid out on the coffee table like a goddamn turkey dinner.”

“I’d love to have you all within hand’s reach,” Steve murmurs, sliding a soothing hand over Nick’s knee. Nick shoves it off but Steve grins because he knows Nick’s only about a quarter as pissy as he’s acting. “Our first time should be about me taking care of you, _enjoying_ you, and that’s how I want to do it.”

“Well you’re shit outta luck cus it ain’t gonna happen,” grouses Nick, picking up a controller to turn on the xbox.

*

The glass isn’t especially cold on his naked back, but it’s not entirely pleasant either. The backs of his knees rest on the edge of the table with his legs spread wide and feet kept firmly planted to the floor. He’s not bound in any way – he’s never really liked that kinda thing in the first place – but he feels exposed, almost but not quite like the handful of mornings he’s woken up in a medical bay.

He’s hyper-aware of the lack of presence on his face without his eyepatch on.

Steve has a little box of things he let Nick look at before having him lay down: a lengthy feather, a squat candle, a little ceramic bowl, a bottle of water. Nick hears the objects scuff softly against the cardboard when Steve sets it down on the couch beside himself.

“You alright?” asks Steve, purposefully casual.

“Peachy,” Nick says.

Steve pours the water in the bowl, Nick keeping his gaze fixed on the ceiling as he listens to the quiet splatter of liquid as it’s filled to the brim. He sets it on the soft flesh of Nick’s stomach, forcing Nick to tense his abdominal muscles and breathe easy or risk spilling it.

As far as complications go, it’s a mild irritation at best. Nick’s been captured by the enemy his fair share over the years, and a bowl of water’s got nothing on what he went through in China in the eighties.

“Spill a drop, I add ten minutes to how long I’ll make you wait to come,” Steve says in a lower tone of voice, the edge of his words rough with partial bashfulness and partial lust.

Nick closes his eyes, his ruined one’s lid sticking briefly before settling shut. “Alright then.”

Steve clears his throat, and this time there’s nothing bashful when he speaks. “We talked about that, Nick.”

Nick fights down a smile. “Yes, _sir_.”

“Don’t be an ass,” says Steve but there’s laughter in his voice.

The first touch of the feather follows, its stiff, silken tip flicking over the soft rise of Nick’s nipple. The skin reacts immediately, hardening with every intentional tap and drag. Steve trails the flat side through the dense, curly peppering of Nick’s chest hair, teasing just on the edge of being ticklish, before sweeping the feather down Nick’s ribs and over the top of his belly.

“Is that a drop?” Steve wonders out loud, the feather trailing around the bottom of the bowl.

Nick grits his teeth.

“Trick of the light,” Steve muses, moving the feather down to Nick’s crotch. He traces the tip over Nick’s inner thighs where the hair is still dark, tiny whorls of hair disturbed by the lines and swirls Steve sketches out. “You never let me get this good’ve a look at you,” Steve says as he fits his free hand over Nick’s throat, not gripping but holding firmly. Nick has to stop and even his breath out again, surprise and pleasure almost making his stomach hitch at the attention. “Nick,” Steve breathes, and the feather moves to his half-hard cock, skimming over the underside and pressing briefly against the slit.

“Squeeze,” Nick says as his lips part, eyes easing open.

Steve doesn’t even chastise him for the lack of ‘sir’, he just firms his fingers, pressing in on Nick’s contracting throat with his palm. Nick’s nostrils flare briefly but he doesn’t put much effort into harder breathing to make up for the impediment.

The feather trails back down and swirls over his balls, a scratchy feeling that makes his toes curl, and then sweeps underneath and down, ghosting over his ass and the scattering of hair there. The need to be opened, to be fucked, comes in a hot rush that has his entire body tensing, bowl trembling on the taut muscles of his soft stomach.

He feels the room temperature dribble of water on his skin before Steve even comments on it.

“I’ll just count that as one drop,” Steve offers huskily.

The feather leaves.

“How do you feel?” Steve asks without removing his hand or easing his grasp.

“Fine,” rasps Nick, not out of being choked but out of lust. “Sir,” he adds tartly, only a little patronizing. He smiles when Steve presses his hand down a little harder before pulling away.

Nick listens to the flick-hiss of Steve’s lighter, flame popping softly as Steve no doubt holds it to the candle’s wick. He’s still staring at the ceiling but he can see some of Steve’s bulk from the corner of his eye, pale and blonde and damn near angelic with afternoon sunlight glowing around him. It’s a pretty view, limited as it is, and Nick’s mouth quirks further.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” he tells Steve, snorting.

“Definitely,” Steve answers without hesitation.

Steve leans into Nick’s direct view, his smile punctuated by slightly parted lips, and he ducks low to kiss Nick chastely as the first hot patter of melted wax drips on Nick’s chest. It stings like a bitch for the first several seconds before the burn eases up as the wax gummifies and dries, but it’s replaced by a fresh drop a few inches away before Nick’s sensitized skin can rest. Nick hisses against Steve’s lips, and Steve grins as he dips his tongue into Nick’s mouth, tasting his restrained gasps with vigor.

It hurts worse when the drying wax tugs on his chest hair when it dries. It hurts most when Steve moves his hovering hand so ten drops splatter his nipples, one after another, molten heat pouring over hard flesh before stiffening up.

“You’re spilling all over,” Steve growl-purrs, spit wet and warm between their lips as he draws away slowly, kitten-licking Nick’s still-open mouth. “Don’t make me be mean to you, Nick,” he teases, kissing his way through the scratch of Nick’s beard to get to the underside of his jaw. He kisses and nips until he’s worked his way around front, teeth catching dark skin there and sucking hard.

“Shit,” Nick breathes out. Wax drools hot over his lower stomach.

“Breathe for me,” Steve tells him when he sits back up, replacing his hand on Nick’s now bruised throat. He chokes him steadily as Nick sucks in sharp breaths through his parted lips, wheezing only slightly when the candle starts dripping on his thighs. He feels some larger drops roll down his inner thighs, cooling in drizzled lines, before Steve leads the falling drops to Nick’s rigid cock.

“Steve,” Nick says, but it’s not a stop.

“Count,” Steve tells him softly.

It burns and Nick tilts his head back, pushing his neck up against Steve’s unwavering grip, and breathes out, “One.”

He gets to twenty before the bowl’s water is too depleted to spill over anymore.

*

Nick’s skintone largely masks the hickey on the front of his throat.

Natasha smirks at him when she comes to say hello anyway.

*

It doesn’t happen every day, not by a long shot.

He doesn’t even _interact_ with Steve every day. They’re both busy, keeping the world from falling apart in their own ways, and that sometimes requires them to be on opposite sides of the globe for days at a time. Neither of them are particularly fond of texting, and phone calls are a risk for a number of reasons.

Nick lets his gloved knuckles brush the little stitched heart on the inside of his jacket every time he reaches for his favorite gun. And sometimes when he’s gloveless and not reaching for his gun.

But even when they’re sharing space or swapping bodily fluids, it’s not often with rules and roles. It’s usually still just them without terms, Steve panting and half-sobbing on top of him and Nick’s fingers in his hair and on his hip. Nick likes it that way.

Still, there are nights where Nick’s on his knees, mornings where Nick keeps still as Steve washes him clean in the constant spray of the shower, afternoons where Steve has another little box of things he’s assembled to take Nick carefully and lovingly apart. There are days where Nick hates how his desk chair manages to touch every bruise beneath his clothes, where his third cup of coffee isn’t enough to wake anything except his cock from the memories of night past. There are conference calls and debriefings where his friends give him little looks because they’re all fuckers.

There is a moment where Nick Fury is in love with Steve Rogers, and that moment stretches unendingly.

*

Steve reclines against the back of the couch, one arm tucked behind his head, his temple resting against Nick’s comfortably sagged shoulder. Steve’s eyes are intent on the bigscreen, but his hand is intent on Nick’s stomach, fingers tucked up beneath the hem of Nick’s loose undershirt to rest against the warm, slightly furred skin there.

“I hate this movie,” Nick tells him crossly.

“No you don’t,” Steve says lightly without looking up.

Nick snorts and laughs, licking the inside of his cheek in an expression of amused defeat.

*

Three months becomes six.

Nick buys Steve a new leather jacket.

*

“This is getting old, Nick,” Steve snarls with an angry shake of his head, standing rigidly in front of the Director’s desk with every muscle in his massive body tight with tension. Nick pauses a beat without looking up from his work, not letting Steve’s display get the immediate knee-jerk response Steve is gunning for.

Steve pants, but his shoulders droop slightly.

“Really,” Nick says when he finally looks up, folding his hands on his desk and leaning forward. “You storm in here telling me you’re tired, because you had to save a couple of hostages?”

“Those weren’t _hostages_ , Nick,” Steve growls, pointing angrily towards nothing in particular. “They were _legally detained_ by the people _you_ sent them to spy on.”

Nick watches him evenly, but he's getting angry now. “They’re SHIELD spies. They spy for SHIELD. How is that a hard concept to grasp?”

Steve bares his teeth. “I’m not gonna waste my time sweeping up all your dirt.”

“You say that like it’s a common thing,” Nick murmurs, his voice tight.

“This is _three times_ in _two months_ , Nick,” Steve shouts, getting heated again, his face flushed and his arm trembling where he still holds it aloft.

Nick nods in sarcastically placid agreement. “And in that time, do you know how many missions I authorized? How many of those you’d probably call _my dirt_?”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Steve asks incredulously.

Nick unfolds his hands and leans back in his chair. “No,” he says conversationally, “It’s supposed to make you feel like the fool you are.”

“Oh, I’m a fool now?” Steve licks his lips angrily as they twist into a bitter smile.

“You’re damn well acting like it,” Nick says lightly.

Steve shakes his head as he turns away, fitting his hands on his hips and gripping them so tightly his fingers squeak softly against the material of his battered uniform. “I keep my objections to myself on the field and bring them _directly to you_ because I want to trust you,” he says hoarsely.

“I’m not _asking_ you to _trust_ me,” Nick says plainly, and Steve turns to stare at him. “I’m _telling_ you to do your damn job.”

“Oh,” Steve says sourly, “Now _you’re_ telling _me_ what to do?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Steve flinches at himself and drops his hands, expression contorting into an immediate apologetic cringe. Nick just watches him impassively.

“Is that the end of your little tirade for today, Captain Rogers?” he asks tonelessly. When Steve can only stare at him helplessly, Nick goes back to his work. “You’re dismissed.”

*

It gives Nick great pleasure to throw away the third and fourth delivery of flowers outrightly instead of staring at them for awhile first. He starts raising his voice with the delivery people to make sure they eventually refuse to deliver to his address.

The box of chocolates, he keeps, but only for the one night it takes him to demolish it.

*

Natasha buys him a goldfish when he tells her to stop giving him the sad eyes.

“Call whoever it is back,” she says, placing the bowl on his desk. The fat, bug-eyed little thing waddles and drifts slowly through its otherwise empty world, fins draped like limp curtains.

“Get that thing outta my office, Romanoff,” he grumbles.

“ _Call him_ ,” she says again, and stalks out.

Nick pushes the bowl to the far corner of his desk.

*

If Nick Fury takes the fish home, feeds it a few sprinkles of the bottled flakes Natasha had brought with it, and puts it on his bedside table, that is his own damn business. 

*

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, kids! There will be a second chapter up soon. Don't forget kudos and comments are my reward for torturing myself with these sweet little fucks. :)


End file.
